


take my heart this christmas

by restlessvirtue



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: 2012-2015 era, 3 + 1, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Secret Santa, fluff with slight hints of angst for good measure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28196292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlessvirtue/pseuds/restlessvirtue
Summary: Three Secret Santas that go awry and one not-so-secret Santa that works out just fine.
Relationships: Tobin Heath/Christen Press
Comments: 46
Kudos: 325
Collections: Preathfics Winter 2020 Collection





	take my heart this christmas

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t apologise enough for how long this ended up being. Mostly to my beta who has better things to do. But! I got it done on time. So, let’s just celebrate that. 
> 
> This was meant to be a quick (lol) and fun Christmas story, so I didn’t get too caught up in the real timeline of when camps actually happened irl or when T/C might’ve been in or out of the squad. Obviously it’s all made up anyway, so I just went with the creative flow. Most of it was written on my phone via the Notes app, so.
> 
> I wanted to participate to thank everyone for the kind words they've left on the fics I've posted this year. I've appreciated every nice thing anyone's said very much and I hope you enjoy one last story from me for 2020. (No, I'm not updating the other one before New Year's – this is it, guys. Apologies that I will forever be just a little bit disappointing.)

**_christen ~ 2012_ **

Her first year on the team, Christen endures days of feverish anticipation for a team tradition she’s already started to hate. It’s the whispered conversations that feel like gossiping when you’re on the outside of them, and everyone conferring on who got who, whether they can swap, if anyone can help with ideas. It’s the way that, despite the fact that Secret Santa is just another coordinated effort by the coaching staff to bring the team together, it leaves her feeling even more excluded. 

It’s an unnecessary stressor within an already tense, competitive environment. It’s also heightened by the persistent imposter syndrome Christen can’t seem to shake, by the way she still doesn’t know who to sit by at mealtime, by the way they call her Press instead of Christen like she’s at some kind of military boot camp or something. She’s just barely making the roster, yet to get her first cap, and now she’s meant to buy a gift for one of her teammates? 

And she’s lucky. She knows she is. She’d drawn Cheney’s name. It could be much, _much_ worse.

If she’d been given the choice, she’d probably have picked Cheney herself. Of course she would have. It had been Cheney who’d been the most warm and welcoming, who’d offered her a spare toothbrush the night she’d realized she’d forgotten to pack one, who’d softened her name to Pressy just a few times – each occasion prompting a momentary swell of fondness and relief in Christen, a glimmer of hope that she might someday fit in here. 

As soon as she’d seen her friend’s name printed on the tag in her hand, she’d breathed out a heavy sigh – not unnoticed by Tobin, who’d smirked at her visible relief as she went to sit back down – and quickly began mentally brainstorming ideas. Of course, when she got back to her room, she began _actually_ brainstorming ideas on the fancy note paper her grandmother had given her months before, filling light pink pages with scribbles and scrawls of every present idea imaginable. In the top right-hand space, she’d drawn a bubble and written, ‘Things for new house with Jrue?’, from which there were various arrows and threads: everything from candles and houseplants to wine and chocolate. 

The very next day, Christen had used up her personal time to head out on a solo mission to the nearest mall for a little inspiration. It had been there that she’d discovered a place that sold charcuterie boards with personalized engravings. She’d simply had to choose a font, spell out the message on a piece of white card and then arrange to pick it up a couple of hours later. 

It’s perfect, she decides, admiring the finished handiwork upon collection.

Or, at least, she figures it’s an acceptable enough idea that Cheney can politely feign appreciation and then hide it away in a drawer forever, never to be used. Fine by Christen. Though, naturally, the entire cab ride back to the hotel and the rest of the day thereafter, she still frets about every which way a person can hate a charcuterie board. _Does she even like cheese? Does Jrue? Maybe they’re not really into hosting. Is it a bit too old and uncool? The font might’ve been a mistake. What if they break-up in the next week?_

One thing she hasn’t spent any time fretting about is her own gift. That is, the one she’ll be receiving. The potential for embarrassment the other way. Until, ten days later, it comes. 

Not the gift, that is. The embarrassment.

It’s only as everyone begins to collect their present from underneath the little artificial tree, covered in tired-looking tinsel that’s almost worn to a thread and tacky-coloured baubles that keep slipping off the branches, that it even occurs to Christen to brace herself. They’re all gathered in the same room they’ve been having team talks in for the past two weeks, each person picking up the gift with their name tag on as they file in, when it begins to dawn on her that she may need to deliver the performance of a lifetime just to avoid offence. 

Kling and A-Rod pick up the two with their names printed on tags, then Syd, Whitney and Alex forage among the assortment to find their own, with Alex taking one that’s marked for Kelley back to her table with her. Christen then takes her turn to find the one that’s hers, the one she’s going to pretend to like if it kills her. Because she needs to fit in, needs to do everything within her power to feel like part of the group, needs to make a good impression any way she can. 

She’s scanning the tags, flipping a few over just to double-check. _Becky. Tobin. Pinoe. Carli. Hope. Boxxy. HAO._

“Press, Press, Press,” Pinoe comes flying into the room, completely out of breath and flapping her arms around, a novelty elf hat attached to her head with reindeer antlers positioned over the top of it and a peroxide blonde fringe poking out from under it. When she gets to Christen, she places a solemn hand on Christen’s shoulder and bows her head momentarily before deciding to fully kneel at her feet instead, making a spectacle of both of them. The humiliation feels so sharp, a knife twisting in Christen’s tight chest, that in this particular moment it’s impossible to imagine another time in which someone as wildly extroverted and willfully chaotic as Megan Rapinoe could ever mean as much to Christen as she someday will. For the moment, they are two ends of a spectrum, no meeting place at its center, only arrows pointing out in opposite directions.

With blood rushing to her cheeks in a furious blush, Christen glances around the room, noticing everyone looking. There are smirks on the faces of most of the girls, Syd laughing, Abby and Christie shaking their heads in knowing disapproval. Against her better judgment, she looks back down at Pinoe, trying not to let the mortification show. Barely above a whisper, the uneven lilt of her question giving away her nerves, she asks, “What’s… going on?”

Pinoe’s wearing an exaggerated grimace as she puts her hands out in prayer. “I am _so_ sorry. I–I… I’m a terrible person.”

“A terrible, terrible person,” Syd heckles, prompting Pinoe to direct an eye-roll in her direction.

When her attention returns to Christen, there seems to be sincere remorse in her eyes and her words as she explains, “I completely and utterly _and completely_ forgot all about this whole Secret Santa situation until exactly five seconds ago. Unlucky for you, I was your person. And I–I have no excuse.” 

“Make one up at least,” Abby scoffs, throwing a couple of the table snacks directly at the kneeling number 15. 

“Press, she’s done this for at least the last three years. It’s not personal,” HAO offers from her seat across from Abby, reclining as if entirely used to this particular brand of Pinoe’s nonsense.

“It was me last year,” Alex says next, a hint of bitterness to the words, a tight smile of sympathy punctuating the sentence.

“I told them not to include you,” Syd tells Pinoe matter-of-factly, a resigned shrug coming at the end of her sentence. 

“Now, listen, I may not be perfect, okay–”

“Here we go,” Abby cuts in. 

“But, hey, at least I didn’t buy someone… what was it? A pizza cutter. Servando got Alex a pizza cutter.”

“I’m never telling you anything ever again, Pinoe,” Alex warns, with a sharp tone that suggests it’s not entirely in jest. “And I _like_ pizza.” She glances around the room before rushing to add, “He got me other stuff, too, you guys.” 

Christen watches Kelley to read the situation, relaxing a little at her friend’s easy amusement and the bubbling laughter that carries through the room, before glancing back down at Pinoe. 

“It’s really fine,” Christen says, trying to smile through her self-consciousness, trying to roll her eyes along with the rest of the group, trying to be one of them. 

“I’ll make it up to you, Press. Best assist of my life, next practice. It’s all yours.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Christen puts a hand out to help Pinoe to her feet, before quickly finding an empty seat next to Cheney at the table furthest from the tree. As she falls into the chair, she feels Cheney’s consoling hand brush over her back.

Hidden away in this quiet corner of the room, she relaxes somewhat in the company of the other girls seated around her: Kling, Tobin, A-Rod and Cheney. She watches Kling unwrap a bobble hat in Tar Heel colours, noticing Tobin pay particular attention to her reaction, then Tobin opens a set of bohemian bracelets and three mini bottles of nail polish, before A-Rod unwraps a pair of novelty oven mitts and a cookbook. Cheney’s the last to peel off her wrapping paper, holding the heavy block of a gift in her hands, weighing it up as everyone around the table turns to watch her big reveal. Christen does her best to keep a blank poker face, even as Cheney’s expression transforms with exaggerated awe. 

“This is… amazing. It’s a fancy cheese board, you guys. And our… our names are in the middle,” she says, the pad of her index finger feeling over the beveled grooves of the engraving. “This is so thoughtful. I gotta text Jrue. This is gonna look so cute in my new place.”

Christen smiles to herself modestly, allowing just a hint of relief to dilute the lingering embarrassment that Pinoe had so thoughtfully gifted her for Christmas. At least her own present was a success. 

It’s as they file out of the room again once the festivities are over that Tobin pulls up beside her, her voice low and conspiratorial as she says, “You were Cheney’s,” like it’s not even a question. If she does have any doubt about it, Christen erases it with a single look. Another sign she needs to work on her poker face. “You should tell her. She’ll want to say thanks,” Tobin insists, nudging her lightly with her elbow as they fall into step.

“Not really the point of _Secret_ Santa.” 

“Such a rule follower,” Tobin teases, and it stings a little more than it should. 

“She was probably just, umm, you know… pretending to like it. Being nice,” Christen replies, the edge of her tone just a little snappier than she means it. 

“Chris, it’s a really thoughtful gift.” _Chris_. Tobin’s never called her that before. Something about the softness of the syllable from Tobin’s lips has a nervous feeling curling in her stomach. “She’s not pretending. You did good, okay?” 

“Okay,” Christen says, quiet and shy now. 

She feels Tobin’s hand brush over her shoulder as her teammate adds, “And, for the record, Pinoe really _does_ forget every single year.”

“I wish I could forget that whole thing happened.”

Tobin’s eyes crease at the corners and then she lets out a laugh, light and dorky. Her smile is so broad, the beaming white teeth she bares seem to illuminate the dim hotel hallway in an instant, laughter lines bracketing it like ripples spanning out from the first drop of a skipping stone. The sound alone – a warm, gentle chuckle of a thing – loosens the tension Christen hadn’t realized she’d been carrying in her shoulders, a gentle ache fading as they drop. To her surprise, she finds herself relaxing, grinning along with Tobin at the stupidity of the whole ridiculous scene.

“So, listen, I got… blue, pink and green,” Tobin announces abruptly, interrupting the easy trickle of laughter flowing between them, now peering into the gift bag that she’s been carrying in her left hand. 

“What?”

She lifts the bag to dangle it beside her face. “Nail polish.” 

“Oh.” Christen doesn’t quite follow.

Seeming not to miss a beat, casual as she blows right past Christen’s clear confusion and awkwardness, Tobin says, “You wanna help me try them out before they let us outta here for that Winter Wonderland thing?”

And it doesn’t feel like pity. Nor mockery. 

It feels like a friendly invitation, with no ulterior motive. Because Tobin’s a lot of things, but she’s upfront about all of them. Uncomplicated. She is who she is. And right now, that is a friend. She’s offering to paint Christen’s nails in any colour she chooses. (As long as she chooses blue, pink or green.)

The idea is almost childlike in its innocence, in the way the simple gesture carries a much greater weight. The way, at five years old, an offer to share a single Barbie was really a coded offer of binding friendship. To have sparkling green nails to match everyone else inside this private circle is like carrying tacit acceptance around on the tips of her fingers. 

“Oh,” Christen says, catching up at last. “You–Okay. Sure. Yes.” 

“I mean, A-Rod’s already booked in for 5.30, but I think I can squeeze you in,” Tobin carries on, hitting the metal button of the lift with the side of her fist before she looks back at Christen. “If you want.” 

*

That’s how Christen ends up sitting cross-legged on Tobin’s bed in the hotel room her teammate shares with A-Rod, while Cheney, Whitney and Kling scatter around the space like mismatched furniture. With a rerun of _The Bachelorette_ playing in the background as the other girls trade old Secret Santa fails of the team, questionable relationship advice and very strong opinions about the various candidates on the TV, Christen slips gently into a new feeling, similar to that first day she’d felt herself fitting in at college: comfort, home, belonging. Tobin, the quietest of the group, spends the duration of the episode cycling through each of the girls, dutifully painting each person’s nails a bright shade and intermittently experimenting with each color on her own hands.

When Christen’s turn finally comes, there’s a strange anticipation to it. To being picked out by Tobin. 

Because Tobin’s cool. In every sense. She’s just effortlessly, enviably cool. Cool with the ball at her feet, like she doesn’t even have to try – like it’s telekinesis, her control of the single, simple object existing beyond the laws of physics – even though everyone knows she spends longer learning tricks and practicing touches than any human on the planet. Cool in how she dresses, like she rolls out of bed each morning in some assorted disarray of brand-gifted clothing that wouldn’t work in combination on anyone else. Cool in how she carries herself, walking around the world like it’s been built for her adventures. Cool in conversation, like she’s not interested in making anyone like her, because they will, everybody does, and it is so impossible for Christen to imagine being so naturally gifted at such a thing. 

To have Tobin’s undivided attention, even for a short time, sparks a thrill. Slight but certain. A paper cut of a feeling.

To be chosen, to be included, to be seen.

In low tones that get lost under the lively chatter of the room, they talk about real things. They talk about their families. They talk about the pressure of camp and how, in Tobin’s words, it’s all just noise in the background of the beautiful game’s unpredictable rhythms and cadences. They talk about Tobin’s love of art and how painting her friends’ nails is the closest she can get during camp but she’ll take it. 

As their conversation continues, she realizes it’s the most words she’s ever got out of Tobin: passionate, philosophical musings that flow one into the next, with Christen’s input only serving to quicken the tempo. For all that Christen had always found Tobin to be almost frustratingly insouciant and laidback in personality, now she watches her spark to life with intensity and enthusiasm. Christen’s relief at being accepted, at having friends here that she feels comfortable around, transforms into something new. It is renewed with a swell of contentment that this particular person is one of them – this lively, creative, impassioned person who’ll paint each nail with the same care she would use with her brush on a canvas. 

There’s the noise of Cheney, Kling and A-Rod battling it out over the candidates on the television screen, and then there’s the quiet, private intimacy of Tobin slowly stroking color up to the nail bed on Christen’s pinky finger as they speak each word like a secret. Her touch is tender over Christen’s hands as she works, the occasional light brush of skin against skin sparking goosebumps beneath Christen’s sweatshirt she’s grateful no one can see. 

By the time Alex and Kelley knock on the door, announcing that everyone’s heading out for the much-hyped Winter Wonderland experience, Christen can’t help her disappointment at the interruption. 

The feeling softens as Tobin dismisses them, insisting she’s still finishing up Christen’s nails.

And as her warm, chestnut brown eyes go big and soft, her eyebrows arching ever so slightly when she turns back to Christen and says, “Need to wait like 15 for them to dry.”

Christen only nods, a barely-there flicker of motion. 

But Tobin’s paying attention.

*

An all-too-short 20 minutes later, they’re climbing into a rowdy minibus full of their teammates, the metal frame of the vehicle echoing giggles and heckles that crash together, a joyful cacophony of sound. Pushing back against every instinct, Christen gets in first, glad to find an empty seat beside calm, composed Becky – an antidote to the chaos. It might even be relief that Christen sees soften Becky’s expression as she pulls up silently beside her and buckles in. 

She’s still fiddling with the seatbelt when she feels a knee knock against hers on the other side. And then she glances up. _Tobin_. Their eyes meet, a smile shared between them.

There’s half a dozen empty seats. 

Christen counts them. There’s one next to Cheney, one next to Kelley, one next to Kling. 

It feels like confirmation, incontrovertible proof of Tobin being glad for her company. 

That had been all she’d needed. She hadn’t even known she’d needed it at all until it happened, until it had a flutter dancing low in her stomach.

*

A short while later, she can see her own breath forming clouds where it leaves her mouth and she can’t really feel her face anymore, but she doesn’t care at all. She’s cheering as Tobin launches a sequence of white plastic balls designed to look like snow at a silver bucket – one after the other hitting her target, the consistent accuracy seeming to take even the stall owner by surprise. She needs only three to win, but lands all five, earning one of the fluffy teddies on display and a hearty cheer from her audience of one. 

Christen’s dutifully holding both their hot chocolates and enjoying the warmth they’re giving off, so, unable to clap, she whoops and hollers gamely, watching her breath float and fade. 

The reward for her enthusiasm comes swiftly. 

Tobin turns, laughing the way she had before, only bigger now. It’s a hiccuping guffaw of a sound over a backdrop of bells and jingles, the distant noise of children’s screams and the deep hum of a generator. It’s transposed, too, in the way her eyes shine, reflecting the colorful lights that surround them as her long lashes catch some of the tiny flakes of snow falling. 

Christen thinks that she could take a snapshot and somehow it would bottle the sound with it, the sight of Tobin’s bright white grin alone capturing every piece of joy inside the moment. It seems bigger, even, than the face that wears it.

“Here, so that you don’t have to go without a gift anymore,” Tobin says, holding out that sweet little bear, its precious gold bowtie sparkling like her smile. 

It’s all she’d needed.

And then far, far too much.

***

**_tobin ~ 2013_ **

Through the cold and frosty conditions of winter, hot tempers flare as the year comes to a close. For reasons no one can pin down precisely, Hope and Abby have drawn battle lines once more, with most of their teammates doing their best not to take a side. 

Tobin’s natural agility conveniently stretches to a knack for avoiding team drama. She exchanges friendly words with Hope at breakfast, shares an over-the-top goal celebration with Abby after lunch.

A total lack of responsibility does wonders for staying neutral.

(And Tobin’s own temper is reserved exclusively for referees.)

The conflict itself seemed to spark a low, crackling bonfire of tension in time for Halloween, a misjudged word taken the wrong way. By November, it had been fireworks and theatrics. At the dawn of December, thanks to the collective scheming of half the roster, a Christmas truce is finally called, with the invocation of wartime legend. 

It had been Christie, the voice of experience and authority, who’d read aloud the story of British and German soldiers marking the holiday season with a brief, impromptu ceasefire. She’d delivered the soliloquy with gusto, holding Abby and Hope’s attention along with the rest of their teammates, explaining that it had been – most conveniently of all – the beautiful game itself that had brought them together on Christmas Eve 1914. A friendly round of football.

And so it transpired that the aggrieved parties agreed to a festive truce. 

For the sake of Christmas. 

And possibly because, when your captain reminds you that World War I soldiers managed to overcome their differences for the occasion, it’s hard to argue the case about hot-headed remarks to reporters over coaching decisions and starting XIs.

To celebrate the occasion, a bonding activity is proposed. They vote on it, their seats arranged in the meeting room like they’re gathered for a coaching presentation. Ideas are submitted and debated, then opened to a show of hands: a snowman-building contest (Carli, always looking for competition), a snowball fight (Kelley, always looking for a fight), cookie-decorating (Krieger, always with a sweet tooth) and ice skating (Syd, ever the Canadian of the group). With Pinoe instantly won over by the option their coach would most likely disapprove of, and Tobin drawn to the rebelliousness of the idea too, the momentum quickly shifts in Syd’s favor. 

In the end, Syd edges Krieger out by a single vote, but celebrates the victory like it’s a landslide. She’s still pumping her fists as Abby hastily reminds them, stern and calming, that they’ll only do it on the firm condition no one gets injured. As if by declaring it so, her word overrules the universe’s natural predilection for the unexpected. 

She’s adamant, though, directing her attention toward whoever she deems the most likely culprits of silliness. “No showing off, no attempting lifts.” She glares at Pinoe. “No dumb fucking ideas.” 

“Nothing more fun than organized fun,” Alex whispers in Tobin’s ear, an easy chuckle of amusement shared between them as Tobin concedes the point with just the raise of her eyebrows. 

She turns her head to notice Christen, sat the other side of her, chewing her lip so that it’s soft and pink and swollen. 

Snapping her eyes back up to her teammate’s, Tobin says, “Chris?”

“I’ve never skated before. This is gonna be so humiliating,” Christen mutters under her breath with such genuine, resigned terror in her voice that Tobin can’t help but laugh at her expense. 

*

“You’re unbearable, you know that?” Christen spits out furiously, both hands grasping Tobin’s arm so tightly, Tobin’s sure she’ll leave red marks the shape of her fingers through countless layers of winter thermals. They’re skating the perimeter of the rink, Tobin leading, Christen clinging on for dear life. 

It’s the smirk that’s riled Christen now. Tobin knows but can’t help herself. 

She can’t help the way she’s enjoying the closeness, warmth blooming in her chest every time Christen loses her footing and leans against her. She can’t help but be amused by seeing her friend, who is usually so sunny and sweet, grow increasingly bitter and cranky. She can’t help loving the way they move around the ice like one figure, their shadows merged on the frosty white surface beneath their blades. 

But Christen’s not amused. She’s too caught up in a long, winding rant that Tobin’s doing her best to keep up with as she carefully pushes her weight forward in another gliding motion. 

“I mean, it is wildly unfair that you’re good at this,” Christen carries on, her expression animated, eyes wide to emphasize her point. “Aren’t you good at enough things already?” 

“Well, it’s kinda just as well that one of us can skate,” Tobin lightly points out, poking her tongue against the inside of her cheek as she looks straight ahead to watch their path for oncoming traffic. They’re skimming close to the edge, keeping out of the way of more confident skaters who circle closer to the centre. 

Christen lets out a groan of frustration and then pulls herself free, catching Tobin off her guard. “Okay,” Tobin hears her mutter, before she launches herself toward the boards that border the ice, wobbling like Bambi until she hits them with a smack.

Tobin doesn’t have time to realize what’s happening, only notices the absence of Christen’s weight against her side before glancing to catch the unsteady slide – then the crash. She turns her skates inward to stop herself, twisting around to watch Christen grip at the barrier, wincing only a little at the bruising impact her landing surely leaves. There’s a stubborn expression on her face as she refuses to meet Tobin’s eyes.

Tobin skates back to where Christen’s glued to the side, straightening herself up against it.

“Chris–”

Christen doesn’t miss a beat, though, continuing on: “No, you get to be… super athletic and pretty much the best technical footballer I’ve ever seen. And–and good at art! And video games. No one even wants to play with you anymore!”

Tobin laughs at how serious Christen’s expression is, a deep crinkle forming between her eyebrows as she talks. She seems to be attempting to use one hand to count off each accusation, but the mittens she’s wearing mean she’s just punching the air impotently, increasingly animated as Tobin skates closer and closer. Tobin ends up hovering at her side, pushing off on her skates back and forth over the same spot, the ice beneath her feet worn and jagged. 

“And soccer tennis! And Heads Up!” 

“Pretty good at actual tennis, too,” Tobin chimes in, only to receive a death glare. 

And it’s all extremely funny until Christen reels off, “And you’re beautiful,” which stops Tobin in her tracks, but not Christen, who keeps on: “and you can surf, and you can skate now, apparently…” 

“What did you just say?” Tobin cuts her off, stock still amid the blur of activity surrounding them.

Christen’s eyes freeze wider than ever, dark eyelashes hitting the overhang of her lids. Her expression is almost cartoonish, the way the rest of her face is mostly hidden behind her woolly hat and scarf, but her eyes – those remarkable green eyes with hazel-gold flecks that only shine in a certain light – seem vast. And then she twists her expression, wincing as if to search around in her memory for Tobin’s answer. 

“You can skate,” she offers eventually.

“Before that.”

“You can surf,” Christen says, dragging it out as if the longer she does, the more likely that Tobin forgets what she was really asking.

Knowing she’s getting warmer by the panic in Christen’s tone, Tobin’s smile stretches out. “I meant… before that, Chris.”

“Can’t remember.” Christen tries to take a step away, realizes she can’t and slips – saving herself at the last second by reaching for the edge of the boards again.

“Chris!” Tobin calls out, trying her very best not to laugh and only half-managing it.

“I don’t recall!” 

Christen looks up at the skaters ahead of them, as if trying to memorize the motion of it, and then she sees Kling passing them by, her eyes lighting up. Again, without any warning, Christen launches herself forward, closing her eyes as she calls out to her teammate. It’s a stumble, but Kling’s low center of gravity seems to save them from a fall, and Christen’s soon safely attached to another unsteady ally, skating far, far away from where she leaves Tobin dumbstruck.

And it’s funny, the way it goes from being funny to not funny at all the longer Tobin’s left with it.

_You’re beautiful_ , she’d said, as if it had been no more remarkable than the rest of the list.

As if it was a simple law of nature.

As if it were as certain as gravity.

_You’re beautiful_ , she’d said. Those words Tobin has thought to herself a thousand times, a persistent refrain, whenever she looks at Christen.

_You’re beautiful_ , Tobin hears again and again in her head.

That is, until Cheney, an equally skilled and natural skater, glides up to her with an unceremonious interruption, chips of ice spraying at Tobin’s feet to announce her arrival. She pulls at Tobin’s arm, effortlessly falling into her well-rehearsed role of big sister as Tobin pretends to wriggle away, playing her part with the roll of her eyes. 

“ _So_ ,” she starts, expectantly, dragging on the vowel. “Did you sort out the Secret Santa thing for her?” Cheney asks, nodding in the direction Christen had swiftly made her escape, where she’s now wobbling against an unwilling Kling at the other end of the rink. The motive for Cheney’s curiosity feels utterly predictable, in line with a particular kind of teasing Tobin’s grown used to lately: “Maybe you could slip in some cute little pick-up line.”

But Tobin’s eyes instantly flare, alarm shining in them as she looks back at Cheney. She’s still caught on the first part. 

“No,” Cheney whines, preemptively chastising. 

“Fuck.” She glances up at her friend, sees the disapproval that she knows is waiting. “I forgot.”

“No, you didn’t. Tobin!”

“Fuck. Chen. What am I gonna do?” 

“What are you gonna do?” Cheney whisper-yells back at her. “You’re gonna get that girl the best gift you can find in a…” – she looks around, trying to figure out an answer – “in a Walmart one hour before it closes! Tobes, she had Pinoe last year! You need to come through or she’ll think everyone’s in on some mean prank.” 

Tobin just groans a drawn out, pained sound, not even getting to finish the self-loathing portion of the day before Cheney drags her toward the rink exit. They’re both yanking their skating boots off in record time, not bothering to fully unlace each one before handing them back to the rental guy in exchange for their sneakers. 

Tobin glances back only briefly on their way out, her eyes finding Christen instantly in her puffy red jacket. While everyone spins and drifts around her, she is standing still, once again finding solace at the boards. She seems to be scanning the rink, looking, searching, wondering. And then she spots her. She meets Tobin’s gaze, a question in her eyes that Tobin can’t answer. 

Tobin simply lifts the corner of her mouth to an apologetic smile and disappears.

*

The Walmart – in all its everyday low prices glory – glows against a black night sky, a beacon of hope in Tobin’s hour of need.

With all the determined authority of police partners out for one final job, they race through the automatic doors of the store, only pausing for a moment at the edge of the entrance mat to get their bearings. Tobin looks one way, Cheney the other, then Cheney breaks into another sprint. They run past every kind of health supplement Tobin can imagine, an aisle entirely filled with various sized storage boxes, about 3,000 types of different shampoos and shower gels, some remarkably low-priced luggage, until, eventually, Cheney pulls up at the edge of a clothing section.

It’s not a conscious decision so much as time pressure that propels them toward the nightwear aisle, Cheney still leading the way as Tobin jogs in more of a saunter behind her friend. They continue passing children’s clothes, swimwear (despite the season) and a collection of novelty Christmas accessories.

“I feel... really bad about this,” Tobin laments as they reach the first rail of dressing gowns, pushing back each one to get a good look at what’s there while Cheney does the same on the other side. The drag of metal hangers along the rail screeches between them.

“You should.” Cheney doesn’t look up.

“Chen!” 

“You should feel terrible,” she snaps as she holds up a set of pajamas that Tobin only wrinkles her nose at. “I expect it from Pinoe, but you! I thought you were gonna think long and hard and get something really cute.” 

“I got distracted.” 

“By looking into her beautiful eyes?” 

“No.” _Yes_. 

Leaning her weight over the rail, her arms crossing along the bar as she peers over to Tobin’s side, Cheney says, “I know you have a little crush on Pressy, Tobes.” 

Tobin’s distracted by the soft, smooth fleece of one of the dressing gowns in her section, running her hand over the shoulders of it. Decidedly not meeting Cheney’s gaze, she shakes her head at the assertion. “I don’t have a crush. How old are you?” 

If the laugh she follows it with feels a little too forced, Cheney doesn’t comment on it.

“Older than you,” she retorts. “And wiser. Much, much wiser. Trust your elder.” 

Tobin scoffs. “ _One_ _year_ older than me, old lady.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Listen, you have to fix this. She can’t be forgotten two years in a row. It’s so harsh.”

Tobin doesn’t bother reiterating her guilt aloud, only nods irritably with an unsubtle air of _I know, I know_ about it. Instead, she stays focused on the options around her, eyes peeled for a gift to break through the Walmart of it all, something worthy of Christen. She finds herself scanning through every quirky fact she’s logged about her friend for the spark of an idea, trying to take inspiration from her surroundings too. The perfect gift has to be somewhere.

She ignores the voice in her head telling her she’ll never find the answer here.

The real answer’s kept locked away somewhere inside a robin egg blue box, in a Tiffany’s several hundred miles away. 

For now, though, there are a pair of blush pink slippers with crossover straps in the style of sandals hanging on the end of an aisle. They’re soft and a little bit silly, and they also happen to be the exact shade Christen had chosen the last time Tobin had painted her nails. Tobin picks them up, her movement decisive enough that Cheney seems to nod her approval in the periphery of her vision.

“Maybe I should get the matching dressing gown too,” Tobin says, mostly to herself, rushing back to the one she’d been looking at a few meters away.

“Really?” 

“Yeah, she gets really cold. California girl,” Tobin reminds her, a fondness softening the words but not the lines on Cheney’s forehead as her eyebrows draw together. “She can’t handle if it drops below 80. The fluffy dressing gown will have her wrapped up all warm and, like, cozy.”

“She’s gonna know it’s Walmart, you know,” Cheney says, trailing behind. 

Tobin thinks about it for a moment, flipping the parting of her hair from one side to the other with the comb of her fingers. “Yeah, so,” she pauses to look around, “I’m thinking the more I buy, the less, like, thrifty it looks.” 

“So, now your plan is to buy her love.” 

“Cheney.” Tobin looks up only to glare at her friend, whose expression bears no hint of remorse. “I’m not even, like, single. What’s with you?” She could ask the same question of herself lately. But she’ll be back in Paris soon, far, far away from the confusion that lies in gold-green eyes. 

“There’s a vibe.” Cheney shrugs.

“Is the vibe… friendship?” 

“Very much not. Which is my point, Tobin.” 

Tobin rolls her eyes, then says, “Will you just hold these” – she drapes the dressing gown over Cheney’s arms and hands her the slippers – “while I find good pajamas to go with them?” 

“Pajamas now? Tobes, everyone else is gifting like… a DVD and a pair of socks. You got Kling a hat last year!” 

“It was a _nice_ hat. It had fleece inside,” Tobin calls back over her shoulder.

Cheney’s almost shouting, her tone laced with incredulous laughter, as she says, “Well, there’s just a bit of a jump from that to you buying out this entire Walmart store is all I’m saying.” 

But Tobin’s already distracted. She’s seen the perfect set. 

*

It’s only when everyone starts picking out their gifts that Tobin feels the flare of a blush in her cheeks, suddenly hyper-conscious of how much bigger Christen’s wrapped gift looks compared to everything else in the pile. Tobin’s not the only one who’s noticed either, a steady trickle of “Damn, Pressy” and “Someone’s popular!” and “Lucky you” comments bandying about the room. And Christen, Tobin notices with a tinge of regret, seems mortified by the attention.

Christen tries to make herself small while the big, squishy bundle is so noticeably large.

Christen tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite go to her eyes. 

Christen tries to open it last and gets called on first.

But even with all eyes on her, as she peels away the paper and the sleepwear spills out, one of the slippers falling loose to the floor, Christen softens noticeably. Her smile seems to become real as her hands stroke over the fleecy lapels, her gaze wandering the room as she says, “I get super cold at night so this is perfect. It’s so thoughtful.”

And Tobin catches it when her eyes linger on the label at the collar of the dressing gown, observing the way her lips smack together as if they’re keeping a secret. 

She keeps it to herself all afternoon, not saying a word to Tobin about the gift until late evening. Everyone’s camped out in Cheney’s room for a festive movie night, an early screening of a collective favorite: _The Holiday_. It’s Cheney, Tobin, Christen, Kling, Whitney, Kelley and Alex, all carving out their own corner of comfort across the two double beds, with blankets and comforters overlapping like a stack of papers that’s dropped loose to the floor. No one quite knows which blanket or cushion belongs to who anymore.

Christen’s already given the group a brief fashion show of her cozy new ensemble, slippers and all, and still has the dressing gown wrapped around herself even under the heat of two blankets. She’s curled against Tobin, drifting in and out of sleep against Tobin’s arm, when she says, low so that no one else hears, “It was you, wasn’t it?”

Tobin’s eyes stay fixed on the small TV screen ahead of them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You forgot, didn’t you?” Christen shifts a little more upright, her hair fluffing where it rubs against Tobin’s sleeve. “You went to that Walmart on the next block because you forgot.”

Tobin shakes her head, pushing out her bottom lip. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

“I’m just happy we found something you’re bad at.”

“Well, as long as you’re happy,” Tobin replies, the words coming out a little more tender than she means them to.

Christen doesn’t say anything for a long while after that. 

They resume watching the film in silence, Christen sinking a little further down in the bed, her head setting against Tobin’s shoulder once more. It’s only as they’re watching Cameron Diaz’s character run through snow-covered English countryside, dramatic music swelling, that Tobin hears a gentle whisper beneath the soaring strings: “Thing is... I actually really love these pajamas, so I guess you’re even okay at gifts.”

When Tobin grins, she pretends it’s the film’s romantic crescendo provoking the reaction. She holds it back just long enough for the moment of reunion to come, timing it just so. Her biggest smile breaks free just as their friends break into a chorus of gushes. 

***

**_christen ~ 2014_ **

She’s started knitting. 

One of her sisters suggested it for stress-relieving mindfulness, so she started knitting.

When developing a giant crush on one of your best friends in the final year of an intense World Cup quadrennial, distractions are good. And knitting is distracting.

So far, it’s entirely just knitting, nothing yet actually _knitted_. It is one stitch after another with an inconsistent tension, the gaps between each attempt too few and far between to work up the yarn for an even shape. It is not a jumper or cardigan, nor even a scarf, hat or gloves. It is simply a square. Her second, after she lost the first somewhere in the middle of North Carolina.

In a hotel, perhaps. Maybe on the bus.

She’d had to replace one of the knitting needles then, too. But she’d impressed herself with the perseverance required to buy another. Two, in fact. (They don’t sell them singularly, as a rule.) There’s at least some consolation in the fact that next time she loses one, she’ll be left with a pair. 

It is in the middle of this soon-to-be short-lived knitting phase that Secret Santa comes along – extra early. They find out their assigned names at the penultimate camp of the year, at the behest of a number of the more vocal players who’d wanted to focus their energy during the camp itself on the training sessions. It’s a valid approach, allowing everyone extra time to find that perfect gift. Or to make it, as Christen decides to do this time, in an attempt to outdo all previous efforts with something a little more personal. When she reaches into the bag and pulls out Tobin’s name, the sight of it feeling like an echo of her most persistent thoughts, she only feels more motivated to get creative. 

Creative. And also a tad ambitious.

Because she decides to knit the gift. She decides she’s going to knit until she’s made something, something a little more substantial than a square. A jumper! She’s going to knit Tobin a handmade jumper, a big old ‘T’ at the center of it like those ones in Harry Potter. It’s decided in her head before she’s even left the room. 

And when they head off to training and Tobin starts trying to tease her Secret Santa name out of her, she only smiles to herself and replies, “You’ll find out along with everyone else,” with an air of unshakeable confidence. 

That unshakeable confidence lasts for about two weeks. 

Two weeks before she realizes she was out of her mind to think she could ever knit a whole jumper in just a couple of months. Even with chunky yarn to help speed the process up, her amateur abilities prove slow-going in the face of a sharp deadline. A jumper? The idea’s a write-off by the beginning of November. 

Instead, trying to improvise with what she’s got, Christen decides to fashion her work-in-progress into a scarf. A scarf is doable. A scarf is practical. So, she makes Tobin a scarf.

It ends up a pretty plain, stubby thing when it’s done. It’s blue with no decorative stitching, though there’s a subtle colour variegation in the yarn that creates a slight self-striping effect. It’s not much. It’s certainly nothing on the elaborate jumper she’d pictured in her mind at the start of her mini project. The satisfaction of having finished something – at last – is quickly outweighed by just how boring and, well, sad it looks now that she can take a step back to assess it. Simple and unexciting, and still her best effort.

*

The team’s Christmas celebrations are penciled in for the end of a rare single-training day, legs aching only half as much as they had been after the previous day’s efforts. There is a hard-fought scrimmage in the morning, a carefully curated lunch menu to fill them up at midday, and then the ‘seasonal spectacular’, so-called by Jill, that is the Secret Santa exchange. 

The team is assembled like always in the repurposed hotel meeting room, with a pile of mysterious gifts beneath the tree looming ominously as one of the assistant coaches attempts to get them all excited about a few holiday activities. Activities that almost no one wants to be participating in. Because the atmosphere is different this year. More intense, more fraught. Everyone’s grown so serious and focused, you’d be forgiven for thinking the World Cup was tomorrow. The Secret Santa seems imposed just to hold onto a shred of festive tradition, as if that alone will save the season from simply passing them all by in the background of heightening pressure and fractious intersquad competition. 

Everyone wants their roster spot. Everyone wants their position in the XI. No one wants to do dumb Christmas shit. 

(The large, glittering Christmas tree hat on Pinoe’s head notwithstanding.)

Christen’s tense like everyone else. It’s infectious. But she’s certainly less so because she’s rooming with Tobin, and stress seems to roll off Tobin like water off a duck’s back. She still laughs readily at every stupid joke, her resting face a bright smile and her body language always an easy and relaxed slouch. She doesn’t even seem bothered by the way Christen sticks relentlessly by her side, an ever-present shadow at the team talks, at training, at this makeshift Christmas party. Quite the opposite. She mutters asides into Christen’s ear and laughs when Christen does the same in return, her shoulders shaking and her chuckles clicking at the back of her throat even when she tries not to make any noise.

They wind up sitting with Cheney, Alex, A-Rod and Kelley when everyone gets thrown into teams for a round of games. They decorate cookies together (which naturally becomes a contest), then they play a festive round of Heads Up, before concluding with charades. It starts off low-energy and lacklustre, but the competitive spirits come out soon enough: Tobin yelling in frustration as Christen tries to act out _A Christmas Carol_ , Kelley practically screaming at Alex for better mime work during _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ , A-Rod throwing out the answer for Cheney’s _Elf_ charade within seconds like she didn’t even need a clue.

Inevitably, Cheney and A-Rod proudly claim the crown, advancing out of the group stage to eventually defeat Becky and Buehler. Their prize? Pride and a gentle roasting from their teammates.

And then, before they know it, the part everyone loves to hate rolls around. 

Secret Santa.

Christen ends up going first for the second year running, unwrapping a set of scented candles and a book that Becky had already mentioned to her about a month earlier. She looks up to find the cerebral centerback across the room and mouths a thank you, a nod in response confirming her suspicions.

When, eventually, Tobin’s gift surfaces from the pile, Christen’s reminded of her weeks-long efforts in a wave of intense regret. Tobin has barely peeled the glittering gold paper away before Christen interjects: “I’ve been, umm... learning to knit, as a hobby. It helps me relax. I was going to make it a… jumper but it takes a long time, so I just made it into a scarf instead. I had hoped it would be… better.” 

“I thought it was meant to be a secret,” Tobin teases her, her mouth slanting to a smile as she draws the scarf out. She unfolds it carefully to get a good look and sounds half-convincing when she says, warmly, “It’s great, Chris.” 

Christen grimaces. “I couldn’t get past a rib stitch.”

“I don’t know what that means but I like the scarf.” She looks at it properly, running her fingers along it. “This must’ve taken you ages.”

Alex leans over to look at it, picking it up from Tobin’s lap. “Ooh! Pressy, did you make this?”

“Yeah,” Christen says, struggling to find her voice. _Because of course. They’d never sell anything so ragged and pathetic in a shop. Who would buy it?_

“So cute!” Alex replies, her husky voice almost squeaking with the enthusiasm. “Kel, did you know Press knits?”

Kelley, who’d been leaning over the back of her chair trying to get a peek at what other people are unwrapping behind them, twists right around on command. “No way! Since when?” 

Christen feels herself shrinking smaller and smaller. “I just got started. That’s why it’s–”

“It’s perfect,” Tobin interjects. And then she drapes it loosely around her neck, sinks low in her chair and rests her arm along the back of Christen’s.

*

Christen has discovered that there are many wonderful things about being roommates with Tobin: the sleepy conversations they have after lights out, the way being alone with Tobin requires no more energy than being alone with herself, the consistent support she’ll get after practice, the sight of Tobin early in the morning with her dopey smile softer than ever, the extra time spent together developing their own in-jokes and references. It’s a never-ending list that Christen makes in her head, a new detail revealing itself with each day. 

But the downside to being roommates with Tobin is that when Tobin’s calling her long-distance girlfriend from the bathroom, the walls aren’t thick enough to protect Christen’s heart.

She can hear every delicately-uttered word mumbled into the receiver. 

Her breath stops through each long silence, imagining the voice speaking through the phone and what it’s saying – both listening for it and not. She’s always waiting for the quiet goodnight, the click of the door, the awkward transition Tobin makes from one life to the other. 

When Tobin comes back into their room after a particularly long call that same night, well after the end of the festivities, she’s scratching her head and looking a little restless. Usually, she falls straight into the bed beside Christen’s, crashing against the mattress without a word. They tend to go a long while before speaking, as if Tobin needs a moment to readjust, to acclimatize to her setting again. But this time she stands awkwardly in the no man’s land outside the bathroom door, looking blankly about the place, not quite meeting Christen’s inquisitive gaze.

“You wanna–you wanna, like, go for a walk or something?” she blurts out eventually. 

Christen’s a little confused, a little surprised. But: “Sure.” She’s never said no to Tobin and isn’t entirely sure she’s capable of it.

Christen hops up off the bed, grabs her coat and pulls her shoes on as Tobin does the same. Tobin takes a little longer about it, picking up her brand new gift from Christen and knotting it around her neck before they head out. The sight of her wearing the scarf now proves a long-held suspicion Christen’s had: she really can make anything look good. Wrapped tight against her neck, folded beneath the neckline of her coat, it looks soft and cozy and warm; it looks good, every misplaced stitch somehow rebranded a scruffy chic with Tobin’s unkempt hair pouring out over it. 

Thinking about Tobin’s scarf means she stupidly forgets her own, so she holds her coat a little tighter against herself as they walk out into the brisk cold wind. 

Side by side, they end up wandering along the sidewalk to nowhere in particular. 

Just the two of them.

Tobin’s girlfriend exists in another timezone that feels, for this moment alone, like a parallel universe. A version of time and space separate from this one, this one in which she belongs to Christen. 

Christen lets herself have that. One night, walking between stars and snow.

“So,” Tobin starts, kicking away a branch in her path, “you headed home for the holidays?”

Christen blows out a warm breath into her hands for a burst of heat before tucking them both in her pockets. She can see her misty breath dancing in the air as she replies, “Yes, umm, my whole family’s gonna be there. Gran Fran, too!” 

“Nice.”

Christen glances over at Tobin, waiting for more, but there’s a distant look in her eye. She walks on, eyes ahead, not even looking at Christen when she closes the gap so that the elbows of their coats brush together. 

“And you?” Christen presses her. “Off to… Florida? Or Jersey?” Quieter, wishing it didn’t belong on the list at all, she adds, “Paris?”

“Headed back to Portland first.”

Christen pauses momentarily in her tracks. “Portland? That seems like kind of a detour.”

“Yeah, I gotta, uh, pick up my paints,” Tobin explains, rolling her eyes like she’s a little embarrassed by her own admission. A self-aware smile creeps in and Christen’s relieved to see a hint of the Tobin she knows and loves as she quickens her pace to catch back up. “I ordered them in, like, a month ago but we’ve been travelling so much, I haven’t had a chance to pick anything up.”

“You can’t get paint in Florida?”

Tobin makes a face, the same face she makes anytime someone brings up her family ties to the Sunshine State. “Not… no. Not the stuff I like.” She’s gesticulating as she talks now, the words coming quicker, flowing naturally the way they do when she’s comfortable, the way they do when she’s alone with Christen. “There’s a really cool art store in Portland, family-owned. Mainly the old lady who runs it; she’s a G.” Tobin tilts her head as she thinks on it a little deeper. “Well, she’s not that old, but, like, kind of witchy. She always helps me out, hooks me up with the brushes I need and lets me experiment with new paints before they’re out. There were a bunch of new iridescents that dropped recently and she just, like… let me play in the studio there. So, I feel like… she’s my girl, you know? I gotta be loyal.” 

Christen smiles to herself. “That’s very sweet.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Tobin nudges her, rolling her eyes again and grinning, finally looking like herself. Wryly, she adds, “You don’t have a yarn dealer?” 

Christen laughs. “A yarn dealer? No. I don’t. I just go to Michaels.” 

At that, Tobin gives a bobbing nod, the motion of it matching the rhythm of their steps as they head further down the street, turning at the corner of the block so that their walk loops back to the hotel. “Well,” she says, her hands squeezing the Michaels masterpiece made by Christen, “I really love this scarf by the way, Chris.”

“You really don’t have to say that. I know it’s a little… basic.”

“It’s warm,” she replies stubbornly, as if that outdoes anything Christen can counter with. 

“I’m still probably doing better than Servando, I guess,” Christen consoles herself. 

Tobin bursts out laughing. “Yeah, better than the lava lamp. And the – what was it? – pizza cutter last Christmas. It lit up, did you see it?”

“It’ll be a macaroni necklace next year,” Christen quips, watching the amusement spread over Tobin’s face before she hears the sound of it burst free, Tobin’s face coming alive in a smile – even with cracked lips and a rosy nose. The sight warms Christen even as she feels the frosty temperature sinking into her bones, the lack of scarf now undoubtedly a big mistake as she pulls her coat even tighter around herself.

“Dang. That’s what I was gonna get you,” Tobin replies, the two of them still laughing together as she steps a little closer and links their arms as they walk. Tobin’s body heat is like a furnace, almost making her glad to have been so exposed to the cold, the comfort of it like stepping inside a toasty, firelit cabin on a winter night.

“I just–a lava lamp?” Christen shakes her head as she thinks about it all over again, trying to keep her thoughts from the way Tobin feels pressed close or how cute she looks with her beanie slipping higher and higher on her head. “In 2014?”

“I know.”

“It hardly sends the message like, ‘I love you and want to be with you forever’, does it?”

Tobin doesn’t reply right away, the silence giving way to a different question that creeps into Christen’s mind: _what did you get her? What do you get the girl at the other end of the phone who waits for you in Paris?_ Christen wonders if Tobin even knows yet. Christen wonders if she forgot. Christen wonders a lot of things in the two, three, four, five seconds that pass between them. And then, her voice smaller, a little pensive now, Tobin says, “That seems a lot to ask from any gift.” 

Christen shrugs. She tries to recover the lightness of the conversation. “I don’t know. There’s good gifts.” 

“Like what? What gift sends that message?” 

_Obviously not a scarf, then_. But if Christen knew the answer, she’d have given it. Instead, all she can do is draw something abstract from her imagination, contemplating what it is she’d most want herself: “Something personal. Something that only that person could get you. Something that’s, umm, you know… like a memory, or… it says, umm, this reminds me of you or this is how I see you, and then the person who receives it feels really, I don’t know, _seen_.”

Christen shivers in the silence that follows, even as Tobin’s arm tightens, bringing their bodies closer together. 

When she involuntarily shivers again, Tobin’s arm slips loose.

She stops walking beside Christen and turns, the immediate proximity catching Christen’s breath in her throat. Before she can react, Tobin’s pulling the hand-knitted scarf loose from around her neck and leaning toward Christen to wrap her up in it. She doubles it over and then threads it through the loop to secure it, zipping Christen’s coat a little higher so that it tucks inside. “There,” she says, her eyes finally looking up from the scarf and meeting Christen’s, the flash of a smile fading quickly when they do, her expression sobering suddenly, eyes darker. 

Christen swallows away the lump in her throat, forces out a smile to break the tension, her tone light and joking as she chides, “Tobin! I just gave this to you.” 

“Yeah, but look at you.” Tobin runs her hands up and down Christen arms a couple of times, like it’ll strike a match, like the warmth it creates will linger. “You’re freezing and I’m good.” 

It’s not a crush, Christen knows without any hint of doubt. The weight of that realization threatens to crush her. The certainty of it is bracing, sharp as the cold nipping at her nose as they continue on back toward the hotel.

She’s been wondering how to tell Tobin for so long. She’s been wondering whether love can be knitted into the stitch of a scarf and threaded around her neck, or hidden in the curve of a letter on a name tag that says no one will ever write you like me, or squeezed into the palm of a hand without asking anything in return but acknowledgement.

For now, she can’t.

Because there’s a World Cup to win, she tells herself, but the truth is, she knows Tobin’s not ready to hear it.

***

**_tobin ~ 2015_ **

This year, they don’t exchange gifts in camp. The Secret Santa ritual gets forgotten amid the post-World Cup upheaval of the group and no one really misses it. 

The last thing Tobin feels is festive. 

Everything’s a fucking mess.

Sure, they won, but some days it feels like the cost was greater than the prize. Some days she feels the sting of Cheney and A-Rod leaving more sharply than a World Cup Final goal can soothe. 

Tobin’s felt heavier than she has in years. The World Cup had been the biggest celebration of their lives, but the comedown had hit hard once the confetti stopped falling and the crowds stopped cheering. She’d learned what it was like to win it all, her dreams coming true on the biggest stage imaginable and her own right foot playing a starring role. The aftermath, though, had seen all of the messiness that had been put on hold for a four-year cycle come spilling out. There’d been old conflicts with the coach resurfacing, her best friends leaving, other teammates getting injured – and then there’d been the worst of it, nothing to do with the team at all: her break-up. Difficult for all the reasons that meant it should’ve been easy. 

It hadn’t been bitter, nor acrimonious. It had been two people moving in different directions, living on different continents. It stopped working because they stopped trying to make it work.

It had long been time to call it. Well past time.

It’s just that, with all the upheaval elsewhere in her life, her longing for something safe and consistent and familiar deepens. For that person who’ll know just how she likes her coffee in the morning, who’ll say yes to whatever weird and wacky adventure she spontaneously comes up with before lunch, who’ll hold her close when the nomad inside her simply wants to find home. 

That’s why she’d thought about calling, or texting, or writing – as if technology itself was the problem – so many times since she’d flown back from that last break-up conversation.

It lessens, though. Over the three months since it ended, the feeling has softened and changed. And those three months mark only the time since they both said aloud what had gone unspoken for far longer – for over a year, if Tobin is honest with herself. It would be cruel and wrong to drag it out further, to undo what had taken so much of them both to finally do, just because she’s lonely and sad and every pillar of her life seems to be crumbling. 

So, her relationship’s over. 

Her team’s in disarray. 

Oh, and she’s started sleeping with her best friend.

*

When Kelley invites Tobin and Christen for a dinner out with some of the friends they know in Waikiki while they’re staying in Honolulu, it’s obvious that she doesn’t expect Christen to decline on behalf of both of them. Tobin can tell from the surprise in Kelley’s voice as she says, “Oh, okay. No worries.” But Kelley doesn’t know that they’ve been sleeping together since the fall, the victory tour pushing the limits of their restraint to breaking point. It had been like a dam: once broken, completely unstoppable. And it’s confusing, more than anything, because Tobin knows it shouldn’t be just sex. They’re best friends too, and what more is there? But every rule in the book says the rebound relationship never lasts. 

Her stuff is still hidden inside the box her ex mailed it back in, souvenirs of long faded feelings and memories she’d rather forget. Her feelings for Christen, on the other hand, are growing too big for the mental compartments she’s trying to keep them in, seeping into everything, her whole messy life, unnamed and undefined. 

What she does know is she likes waking up to Christen’s smile in the morning.

What she does know is the sound Christen makes with Tobin’s hand between her legs haunts her daydreams.

What she does know is the only time she feels like herself these days is when Christen is with her.

But what they’re doing, she doesn’t know at all. Christen asks for nothing. She lets Tobin off easy, coming to her room, coming in her bed, disappearing with the breeze as though nothing’s happened, as though nothing’s happening. 

And Cheney, if Cheney were still here, would call her on it. She would notice the sly glances, the bitten down smiles, the hickeys creeping from under the neckline of a US Soccer branded training top. She would be the one to pull Tobin aside and tell her it can’t go on like it is, surely she knows that, it’s not fair to Christen. She would talk some sense into her. Tobin can hear every word her best friend would tell her, her tone not angry, only disappointed. But the Cheney in her mind is so much easier to dismiss than the real thing. And the real thing’s gone now. At least from training camp, at least from Tobin’s everyday. 

Christen’s all she has left. 

That’s why it feels so dangerous. That’s why there’s so much to lose. 

And when does anyone ever really _know_ that something’s worth the risk?

That’s why she feels stupid for ever letting it start, for thinking that the two of them sharing a room for the entire tour wouldn’t be her undoing, for following Christen out of the bar that first night when it was all so inevitable. There’d been electricity between them for hours. There’d been dancing, if you could call it that, two bodies spilling over each other, speaking a language more direct than words: close and hot and tipsy. There’d been a couple of drinks, the buzz going straight to Tobin’s head. And when Christen had disappeared suddenly, Tobin had felt an invisible tether pulling her along too. She’d followed her outside and found her leaning against the wall out front, inhaling the fresh night air like it was a lifeline.

She doesn’t remember who kissed who. It had felt so entirely mutual, the gap seemed to close itself. Even if it hadn’t been Tobin, she had been willing it to happen anyway, the seed of want sprouting and blooming in the light of her breakup, the root of the feeling curling a path down deep. She hadn’t stopped it, hadn’t slowed things down, hadn’t sent Christen back to the hotel in a cab on her own. 

She’d let it happen. She’d wanted it to happen.

It had begun amid one heated night out, but the chemistry, that edge of something more between them, had been creeping in for months already. Messy as it was. Messy as it still is. She’d thought about kissing Christen’s lips a thousand times before finding the courage to do it. She’d thought about far more than kissing her. 

Now they’re stuck in the part that comes after, everything thrown in the air, waiting to see where it all lands. And that would be fine. She’s done this before: casual romances with feelings that go unacknowledged. It’s just that now, in certain moments, Christen looks at her and smiles so bright that Tobin thinks she could shape her whole future around a single smile.

Her mouth goes dry. The beat of her heart quickens. Her hands get clammy.

Because there’s nothing more terrifying than the niggling fear that someday, sooner or later, this nebulous thing between them will come to an end, because everything does, and she’ll face a heartbreak more devastating than the one before it. It’s coming, a train barreling toward her at full speed, and she can’t get off the track. It’s her own doing for ever crossing that line with a friend, a best friend, _her Chris_. But, fuck, it feels good. Whatever it is they are, whatever they’re doing, it feels good for now. And now is about all she can handle these days.

Of course, Kelley has no idea about any of it as she drifts away to ask Alex instead. 

And Tobin, who can’t help but enjoy the way Christen had just claimed her for the evening, is left smirking at Christen with the question in her eyes before she asks, “We have other plans, huh?”

Even being alone with Christen here, in the hotel cafeteria with their teammates a table over, she feels a giddy excitement in her company. She delights in the sly smile Christen thinks she can hide from her, an echo of a similar look she’d worn in Tobin’s bed the night before. She enjoys the teasing twitch of Christen’s eyebrow, lifting in time with the shrug of one shoulder as Christen replies, “I thought we could… hang out by the water later, watch the sunset.”

Christen’s quick to look away after she says it, feigning interest in the salad she pushes around with her fork. 

“Is that all we’ll be doing?” Tobin pushes her, a lilt of amusement creeping in.

The only reply she gets is the scrape of cutlery against the plate. 

*

December in Hawaii feels nothing like the winter she left behind in Portland. At home, there had been Christmas lights up around the city already and a frigid chill in the air; here, it’s warm still, even as the afternoon fades. There are festive decorations up, of course, but they’re second best to the scenery surrounding them, Tobin’s attention lost to the ocean tides and the imposing silhouette of Diamond Head in the distance.

Tobin and Christen head down to the beach early in the evening, the sun still shining low from behind a sheet of cotton clouds. Tobin’s surfed most of the day away just to keep busy, so there’s a pleasant ache in her body, tiredness lapping at her feet as the dusk draws in. Christen, though, is dazzling tonight, glowing like a Christmas tree every time she smiles. She’s got a yellow hibiscus tucked behind her ear, a lei around her neck decorating her like tinsel, and there’s a spark of daring in her eyes – a little out of character – that perhaps explains the presumptuous approach she’d taken to getting Tobin alone. (Not that Tobin would’ve done a thing to resist the opportunity.)

Without a word, once they’re far enough from the team hotel to avoid running into teammates, their hands find each other in the space between them as they walk, slotting together with fingers laced the way they’ve rarely let themselves enjoy in public. At the touch, Tobin can’t help but laugh that, even in Hawaii, Christen’s hand feels freezing cold against her own. 

“Why are you always cold?” Tobin asks with a grin, glancing down at their hands in a hint of acknowledgement – progress in itself.

“It’s my curse.” Christen shakes her head with a serene smile, only making Tobin hold her hand tighter. Tobin doesn’t want to let go now, not knowing when the next touch will come along, savoring this as long as she can.

They don’t let go until they find their spot. 

Christen decides on it, letting her oversized, loaded tote bag down from her shoulder and settling it in the sand. They end up in a relatively secluded part of the beach, with a perfect view out onto the water; Tobin’s quick to grab the camera she’s been carrying around her neck for most of the trip to take a few pictures. The late afternoon light makes it tricky to capture the scenery in all its glory, the colors too dull, the water looking too flat. Nevertheless, the picture still looks pretty spectacular, even just coming up on the LED screen.

There’s no one to impede her shots from this angle. There’s no one else around beside the odd dog walker or oblivious couple, a few surfers passing by. No one’s giving them a second look. They’re anonymous, the way they were that night at the bar. 

And once the click of her shutter goes silent, the camera resting at her side, the quiet hits her. 

Lately, being alone with Christen has only one outcome.

Tobin pushes that dangerous thought away. 

Their voices mumble low over the gentle sound of water lapping at the shore, a world away from Winter Wonderlands and Christmas parties, as they make small talk. It’s so still around them, a privacy found in this little patch of public space that they’d have been lucky to find even in their hotel room. Here, it’s just them. There’s no laughter of teammates in the next room, or poorly-timed knocks on doors, or early morning wake-up calls. 

It’s the two of them on their own time, the setting sun their only company. 

Tobin gazes out at it, memorizing the sight of the sky purpling like a bruise and the tall buildings lined along the curving shore glowing like fairy lights. Then her focus shifts to Christen, the silhouette of her face in the foreground an even more breathtaking sight – only more so when she turns, noticing Tobin’s eyes drinking her in.

“You look beautiful,” Tobin whispers, her fingers brushing over the flower behind Christen’s ear delicately. It shouldn’t feel so scary to tell her the truth, but she feels her stomach tying itself in knots just to find the words. “Hawaii suits you.”

“I don’t know if it’s Hawaii,” Christen replies, turning back to face the sprawling ocean.

It piques Tobin’s curiosity. “What then?”

“I’m just… happy. To be here with you,” she admits.

“I noticed you sure didn’t want to hang with Kelley and the guys tonight,” Tobin teases, chuckling to herself as she leans closer, resting her head against Christen’s shoulder lightly, momentarily. If it felt permissible to leave it there, she would, but it all feels too delicate still.

“No, I–well, yes. I did. But I–” Christen fumbles, starting and stopping, wincing as she struggles for the right thing to say. “I also wanted… to, well…”

And Tobin thinks she’s going to ask to talk. It’s been a matter of time until Christen wants answers, and she deserves them, not that Tobin knows precisely what the answers are. So, when Christen eventually says, “I wanted to give you something... for Christmas,” Tobin can’t hide her surprise. “It’s not a big deal,” Christen rushes to add, her hand touching Tobin’s forearm as if she needs to reassure her. “I just… wanted to give it to you, umm, somewhere nice. Somewhere just the two of us. I know we’ve got more games still, and… we’ll still be together, you know, umm, geographically, but I… Hawaii just feels like the moment, you know?”

Tobin can’t help but think it a romantic notion, _the moment._ The words stick in her mind, glittering with promise. 

Christen turns away then, taking her touch with her, leaning back toward her big, mysterious bag and drawing something out with a rustle. When she turns back around, she’s got a perfectly rectangular parcel in her hands: neatly wrapped in starry silver paper, a red ribbon tied around it and knotted in a bow. There’s no hiding the care taken, even with the light dusting of sand it picks up from her hands. 

“You didn’t need to get me anything,” Tobin says, because it’s the thing she’s supposed to say, but also because she means it. Christen already does more than enough for her, she _is_ more than enough. “To be honest, I… I forgot it was even Christmas soon.”

Christen gives a shrug, short and sweet. “I thought of the idea and I wanted to.”

Carefully, Tobin unwraps a neat wooden briefcase, the warm brown and smooth grain of the wood so beautiful, even through the layer of plastic film, that it takes a minute for her to turn it over. When she does, she sees that on the other side there’s a picture of its contents: a multi-media travel art set. One side of the case can be propped up as a mini easel, and there’s a palette, paints, pastels, pencils, a sketchpad and brushes inside, all stowed in different sections and compartments. 

“This is–” Tobin doesn’t have the words. “Christen.”

She takes herself by surprise when she leans over and presses a quick kiss to Christen’s lips. The brim of her snapback knocks lightly against Christen's forehead at the contact, but that doesn’t seem to be the reason Christen’s eyes go wide for a moment. Tobin watches her cheeks lift to a grin, her eyelashes flutter, her lips press together.

“I figured you could take it wherever you go,” Christen explains, laughing shyly as her hand goes to cover her mouth. “I know you love to take your camera everywhere but I… I thought it’d be a new way to capture things, or to, umm, experiment whenever you want to.” 

Tobin, like an eager child on Christmas morning, scratches her fingernail until the plastic tears and she can peel it off. She opens the set up, positions the mixed media pad on the rim of the easel and begins fiddling with each piece inside the set. Her hands skim over the pencils, pick up the pastels one at a time, inspect the shades of the watercolour cakes. She possesses no instinct to preserve the shiny newness of it all; instead, she wants to break it all out and scatter it over the beach just to play with everything as soon as possible. 

Accompanied by a gasp and a laugh, Christen says, “I didn’t expect you to start now.”

Without saying another word, Christen’s eyes watching her intently, Tobin starts creating the scene around them on the first page of the pad with a faint outline of pencil. Once it’s marked lightly onto the sheet, she pours the last droplets of water from the bottle in Christen’s bag into one of the wells of the palette, dabbing her brush in it to wet the cakes of blue and pink paint, bringing them to life. Soon, she’s added a broad wash of colour to match the ocean, with orange and yellow where the path of the low sun hits it, little flecks of white detailing the crashing waves. 

She doesn’t know exactly why she’s capturing it.

This beach, their beach now. The spot Christen had been saving her gift for.

One detail of the scene at a time, it takes shape at her fingertips. She brings to life their setting in an abstract, messy, unique way: her way. It’s as she uses the fine angled brush to add her initial to the corner, she realizes that it’s the present she should’ve given Christen a long time ago. Not enough, of course, but made by hand just like that scarf Christen had wrapped her up in only last Christmas. If she can wrap Christen up in this place she called The Moment then maybe they need never leave it, this beach at sunset, this precipice of something more, this feeling – so alive, so close, so connected to another person. 

“For you,” Tobin announces when it’s done, turning the pad around so that Christen can see her finished piece a little more clearly. It’s far from her best work, but the shades match the scene around them perfectly, the light gold sand blending into the cool blue of the water, the sky a maelstrom of extraordinary color above it all.

“For me?” 

“I’m gonna try not to be so bad at gifts from now on,” Tobin promises, and it feels loaded with the promise of something else, too. “This is me… like, trying.” 

Christen admires the painting, holding it at a careful angle to avoid the paint running, before setting it aside carefully as she replies, “I think you’re doing better than you think you are.”

When Tobin turns back to the travel case to place the brush she’d used back into the slot it came from, hiding a fond smile from Christen’s view, she catches sight of a custom label attached to the plastic wrap. She hadn’t noticed it at first: a small neon green oval, the style of it distinctive and familiar. It’s the curve of the letter ‘C’ over Christen’s name that catches her eye most of all, the looping letter she recognizes as Magda’s. It’s the same handwriting that marks the rest of her art supplies, the ones that had been reserved in her own name, a familiar marking that can only mean one thing. 

“Did you go to Oil on Canvas?” she asks, picking it up in her hands to get a closer look. 

Christen nods, tucking her bottom lip beneath her teeth. She brings her knees up tighter to her chest, her hands clinging to them like a shield. 

“When–when were you even in Portland?” 

“Umm, the game we had.”

“What game?” 

“Thorns v Red Stars,” she says, a little quieter now.

“In August? Chris, I–” And suddenly the only thought that comes into her head is, _oh_ . One loud resounding realization. It feels so crisp and clear, like she’s been driving through a dark storm for months now and only just remembered how to turn her headlights on. She suddenly understands why she’d felt so compelled to paint. She’d wanted to capture this beach, this sunset for what it means. The place she was the first time she really knew. The way people always say when you know you know. _She knows_. “I’m in love with you.”

“What?” Christen says, her serious face transforming with a smile and then a rich, real laugh, the sun coming out again somehow. It has hope bursting open in Tobin’s chest; it’s reckless, beautiful hope. 

Even though Christen’s laughing, there are tears shining in her eyes that Tobin only prays are happy ones. She’s optimistic enough to carry on, to ignore her thumping heart threatening to beat out of her chest. “I am. I, like… don’t even remember when I wasn’t now that I… now that I really think about it.”

As Tobin watches Christen’s eyebrows furrow, a deep line forming between them as she shakes her head, she’s seeing her in a different light. A brighter one, a clearer one. She’s reveling in every detail of her face, beautiful even now, even with her expression all pinched as she averts Tobin’s gaze. She’s appreciating the soft vulnerability in Christen’s voice as she says, “You–you can’t just… be in love with me.”

Tobin’s smile stretches itself out from ear to ear, growing more confident, because Christen’s argument is so crazy to hear that it only makes her more sure. And the certainty comes with something more, too. It comes with the ability to recognize the same feeling reflected back at her. Because you don’t think about a Christmas present for a girl you’re just sleeping with four months early, before anything even happened at all. You don’t spend God knows how much on it, sneak away to the beach at sunset and give it to her like you’re handing over your heart. That’s how Tobin knows: “You love me too, Chris. You got me the gift, didn’t you?”

Christen tucks her hair behind her ears, nervous enough that she forgets about the flower there. It falls loose, but Tobin catches it just in time. She strokes over the soft yellow petals with the pad of her thumb, then looks back up at Christen. Slowly, she tucks it back where it belongs, dragging out every look and every touch just to watch Christen grow nervous and shy and so fucking _obvious_.

Tobin’s touch lingers on the flower even after it’s fixed in place again, her eyes darting to Christen’s. And then she smirks. Cocky as anything. 

The kind of cocky usually reserved for the post-coital smugness Christen pretends to hate.

(The tremble of her body and the moans from her lips betray the truth.)

Tobin’s smirk earns the reaction she wants. Christen pulls back like she’s reacting to an electric shock, shaking her head again and saying, voice soft as ever but a little bit indignant too, “What do you mean? You’re so full of it. How do you know I even like you?”

“Something personal,” she reminds Christen carefully, the words she remembers from last year coming back to her now. Her tone is serious and intense, and Christen takes in a sharp breath before she’s finished. “Something only you would get me. Something that makes me feel seen.” 

“Okay, okay,” Christen nods, closing her eyes as she smiles, her face turning away before she opens them again to look out at the vast ocean as if trying to soak up all its calm. “Maybe I do... like you, a little bit.”

Tobin’s unabashedly staring at her now, beaming, waiting for Christen to turn her head again to face her. Christen fixes her gaze resolutely on the horizon. “Chris.” She prods her shoulder with her index finger, her best attempt at getting Christen to look into her eyes again. “You didn’t say anything. How come you didn’t… You never asked. You never push me to, uh, like, explain what it is we’re doing.”

There’s a distant dreaminess to Christen’s voice when she replies, “I knew you weren’t... ready for anything. I was scared that if I pushed… you’d run away from it, from me. So I didn’t push.”

Tobin swallows, the sobering honesty almost too much. Almost. Not quite. “And are _you_ … ready?”

Christen laughs to herself, covering her face with her hands. “I’ve been waiting for you a long time, Tobin. I don’t mind waiting a little longer. However long you need, really.”

“You–”

“You remember that first Christmas I was in camp? You gave me a teddy bear.” Christen shifts so that she’s holding her cheek against her hand, her elbow propped against her knee, her face turned toward Tobin at last. Suddenly, it feels like too much to have an audience to the dawning realizations that trickle down in her memory, a sequence all adding up at last. 

Tobin can barely remember that year in camp, three years ago now. Only fragments come into view. There’s the distant memory of the fair they’d gone to, of pretty lights and Kelley and Alex’s spirited rendition of ‘All I Want For Christmas’ for most of the bus ride and Christen looking like a deer in the headlights almost all day. And then she’d started to relax, and they’d bonded a little, and the bear–

“I’m not trying to freak you out,” Christen hastens to add. “I’m just saying, if you want to wait, I’ll wait. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”

Tobin lifts her hat to run a hand through her hair before resetting it on her head. It’s overwhelming, suddenly. In a good way. But overwhelming, still. “I have a bunch of shit that I–I need to…”

“Yeah, I know.” The amount of time they spend together, Christen knows Tobin’s shit better than anyone. 

“And I’m not even really sure what I’m doing, like, with myself.”

Christen nods patiently.

“The future’s–” Tobin shakes her head, unable to articulate the fears and stresses that echo in her mind about all that’s yet to come. There are the worries about how the team can pull it together before the Olympics with so many of the longtime stalwarts gone, and about how she’ll cope going forward without Cheney and A-Rod by her side, but far bigger are her concerns over how she’ll ever be able to function in a normal relationship, how she can make work what never has in the past. 

The thing is, looking at Christen, that stuff all feels small. It’s tiny, compared to what she feels for this person who’s loved her quietly for these past three years and never asked for a thing. The thought of not trying at all feels so much scarier, suddenly, than taking this golden, glittering chance together. “The future’s fucking terrifying, and I don’t really know what I want… in a lot of ways. But the one thing I know is, I really–Chris, I want you to be in it. I want you to be _it_.”

“You do?” Christen asks, her voice lifting with hope as her hand balls to a fist in the hollow of her cheek, holding her head up as she gazes sidelong at Tobin. 

They’re truly alone now, the Hawaiian sun sunk beneath the water. There are only the lights from the city, sparkling dots like a constellation landed on earth. And then there’s the light in Christen’s eyes as Tobin smiles back at her, nodding a promise. 

The look in those green eyes – her stare bold and unabashed, a twinkle to it – feels like Tobin’s cue. She edges closer, leaning in slowly. 

There’s no mistaking the prelude to a kiss.

And this one is slow and blissful and certain. Inevitable. 

Which is why it takes Tobin by surprise when Christen pulls away, a sudden shot of ice cold panic running straight through her at the smallest of movements. It’s quickly waived off by a soft ripple of laughter and Christen’s gentle touch as she reaches to lift Tobin’s snapback from her head. Their faces close, their eyes meeting in a stare more intense than ever, Tobin can’t help but scrunch her nose as she feels the cool air breeze at the matted roots of her hair, Christen only quirking her lips to a slight smile in reply.

There’s careful focus in Christen’s face as she turns the cap around so that the brim is at the back, placing it on Tobin’s head again as if crowning her, their hands brushing as Tobin helps her straighten it up. Christen brightens at the touch, her lashes fluttering like the butterflies in Tobin’s stomach. And then her eyes flash down to Tobin’s mouth.

Tobin rocks a little closer, but Christen holds back a moment longer, as if not quite ready to stop looking at her. It makes Tobin shy like she’s never been. Every kiss between them before this has been heated and hungry and urgent. The measured stillness and quiet inside this moment sets it apart, making it feel as weighty as she knows it is.

Their lips are almost brushing as Christen whispers, “I always wondered why you like to wear that thing backwards sometimes.” Her hand moves from Tobin’s cap down to her cheek, the side of her thumb sweeping over Tobin’s cheekbone.

“Makes it easier to kiss beautiful girls,” Tobin replies, her voice low as she teases the words against Christen’s mouth, closing the gap at last to claim the kiss she’s aching for. 

This time, she has time enough to notice the softness of Christen’s lips, like she must have put chapstick on right before they came out. She has time to savor the cold brush of Christen’s nose against her skin. She has time to start gentle and affectionate, before biting on Christen’s bottom lip just a little, guiding her mouth open, deepening the kiss. 

“Uhuh,” Christen says, when they part for a breath, “Girls?” 

Tobin chuckles at that, her hands reverently holding Christen’s flushed face before she presses a light kiss to her lips once again, shorter and sweeter than the last. “One.” She adds another. “Just one.” And another. “Just you.” And the last kiss she adds lingers.

“Good,” Christen breathes out, when next she gets a chance to, and it’s barely a second before they’re kissing again. Tobin pulls her into her lap to make it easier, more comfortable, the change of position allowing them to get carried away. 

Tobin might not remember the details of their first kiss all that clearly, but this – this slow, heated embrace imbued with love – will stay with her forever. It’s the first one with Christen that’s truly made her feel fearless instead of terrified. She doesn’t have to worry about it ending, because another comes along after a breath. It’s grounding and safe and comforting.

They sit there melting into one another, a single silhouette in the moonlight, kissing like they can’t believe they’re allowed to. 

It’s only when it gets too cold even for Tobin – she doesn’t know how Christen’s coped up till now – that they decide to head back. 

As they slowly retrace their steps to the hotel under the moonlight, their handhold extending the full length of their arms like reeds that’ve twisted around each other, Tobin stops abruptly. “Shit.” She’s got Christen’s bag on her other shoulder now, as if to prove that chivalry is alive and well (though it does mostly contain her own Christmas present), and feels it lightly bump against her hip when she halts her stride.

“What?” Christen says, an edge of concern to it that Tobin feels a touch guilty about.

“I just remembered. Your birthday,” she explains. “It’s right after Christmas, right?”

Christen lets out a sigh of relief in a laugh. “Yeah, but you don’t need to… worry about it.”

“Chris,” Tobin pauses, leaning between them to place a precious peck of a kiss on Christen’s lips, barely a brush compared to a few minutes earlier. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna get you something.”

“Okay,” Christen accepts instantly, a heavenly delight to the word that makes Tobin a little dizzy, her eyes almost crossed as she admires Christen’s bright smile in close-up. “But… I should warn you” – Christen pauses to kiss Tobin’s hand where it intertwines with her own – “I already have everything I wanted this year.”

*

A few days later, the very next time they play, Christen gets a hat trick against Trinidad and Tobago. She scores a banger outside the box a minute after she subs in, a nutmeg finish from a cross by Krieger, then a header to complete the set.

As Tobin watches each goal go in, one after the other, she can’t help but think, _that’s my girl_.

The pride soars in her chest, the way it always has. She’s always felt this particular way watching Christen succeed and she’s never thought too hard on it, about why Christen’s goals have always, always, always felt like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart. She only let herself feel it, let her smile stretch across her face before she whispered some supportive words inside a hug or, if she was sidelined, hollered from the bench. It had been an instinct, from the first time they’d played in practice together, barely dampened during the times they’d scrimmaged against one another.

The feeling has never gone away. It’ll never go away.

That’s her girl. 

After the game, when they’re back inside the locker room and she can wrap her arms around Christen in a hug that they disguise as friendly to any watchful eyes, Tobin whispers, “Another hat trick? I thought you already had everything you wanted.”

And when Christen replies, “I was feeling greedy,” Tobin drops her head against Christen’s shoulder as her body shakes with laughter. 

“I love you,” she says fondly, naturally, the words spilling out as easy as the laughter. They’re spoken low enough that there’s no danger of anyone else hearing amid the noise of the celebratory locker room. 

Those three words don’t feel new coming out of Tobin’s mouth anymore. She’s said it before, said it as many times as she’s felt it in the week since Hawaii.

But when Christen whispers, “I love you,” in return, she realizes that it will never get old.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry to Megan Rapinoe and Servando Carrasco who ended up being the accidental villains because I needed someone to be bad at gifting, and, well, it just worked out this way. xoxo
> 
> Wishing you all safe and happy holidays, whatever you happen to celebrate. 
> 
> If you're spending Christmas alone due to the circumstances, sending you all the love and good vibes. Get those Tobin Heath goals on replay whenever you need them.


End file.
